Vallejo City Council may ask public how to spend its funds

In a special meeting Tuesday night, the Vallejo City Council will consider letting the public directly decide how to spend city money.

The council's special study session on so-called "participatory budgeting" comes at the request of Councilwoman Marti Brown, who had initiated her own public event on the subject in April.

In January, when the council voted to hold a meeting on introducing the new budgeting method, Brown's idea received some resistance.

Mayor Osby Davis said he was uncomfortable with delegating the city's budgeting process to the public, as voters elected the council to undertake that very type of work.

Davis also questioned which funds would be assigned public review.

The participatory budget model typically designates a specified chunk of money for detailed public interaction.

Potentially, Vallejo could look to new revenue generated from the 1 percent tax hike measure narrowly approved by voters in November as Measure B.

Davis said promises were made by city leaders during the recent election.

"I've heard it from our finance director, we're going to have to start thinking about spending Measure B monies on things that are not reoccurring expenses," Davis said.

Brown said she could not imagine aiming the public budgeting process at the rest of the city's discretionary spending fund, which is "too stretched," and has "no fat."

"Forty nine point five percent of people voted against Measure B, myself included. I didn't support it, it's not a secret," Brown said at the meeting. "So, I think the opportunity here is that we get to engage people, almost 50 percent of the population, who didn't support it, and actually help rebuild trust and confidence in us as a council, in our leadership, and rebuild trust in local government in a way that's never been done before."

Councilman Robert McConnell, who also spoke out against the tax measure during his campaign last fall, said participatory budgeting is "a highly desirable process," an idea bandied about by the now-defunct Vallejo Charter Review Committee, of which he was part.

Assistant City Manager Craig Whittom, who is serving as acting city manager this month, said at the meeting that he did not believe the public budgeting method would be used for the city's entire $75 million general fund.

Though the city has estimated $9.8 million more will be added to the city's coffers because of the sales tax increase, actual revenue will not start rolling in to city coffers until this summer, Whittom said.